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MARRY, and love thy Flavia, for she | |
Hath all things, whereby others beauteous be; | |
For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great; | |
Though they be ivory, 1 yet her teeth be jet; | |
Though they be dim, yet she is light enough; | 5 |
And though her harsh hair fall, 2 her skin is tough; 3 | |
What though her cheeks be yellow, her hairs red, | |
Give her thine, and she hath a maidenhead. | |
These things are beautys elements; where these | |
Meet in one, that one must, as perfect, please. | 10 |
If red and white, and each good quality | |
Be in thy wench, neer ask where it doth lie. | |
In buying things perfumed, we ask, if there | |
Be musk and amber in it, but not where. | |
Though all her parts be not in th usual place, | 15 |
She hath yet an anagram 4 of a good face. | |
If we might put the letters but one way, | |
In that lean dearth of words, what could we say? | |
When by the gamut some musicians make | |
A perfect song, others will undertake, | 20 |
By the same gamut changed, to equal it. | |
Things simply good can never be unfit; | |
Shes fair as any, if all be like her; | |
And if none be, then she is singular. | |
All love is wonder; if we justly do | 25 |
Account her wonderful, why not lovely too? | |
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies; | |
Choose this face, changed by no deformities. | |
Women are all like angels; the fair be | |
Like those which fell to worse; but such as she, | 30 |
Like to good angels, nothing can impair: | |
Tis less grief to be foul, than to have been fair. | |
For one nights revels, silk and gold we choose, | |
But, in long journeys, cloth, and leather use. | |
Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say | 35 |
There is best land, where there is foulest way. | |
Oh, what a sovereign plaster will she be, | |
If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy! | |
Here needs no spies, nor eunuchs; her commit | |
Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmoset. | 40 |
Like Belgias cities the round country drowns, | |
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns, 5 | |
So doth her face guard her; and so, for thee, | |
Which forced by business, absent oft must be, | |
She, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night; 6 | 45 |
Who, mightier than the sea, 7 makes Moors seem white; | |
Who, though seven years she in the stews had laid, | |
A nunnery durst receive, and think a maid; | |
And though in childbeds 8 labour she did lie, | |
Midwives would swear, twere but a tympany; | 50 |
Whom, if she accuse herself, I credit less | |
Than witches, which impossibles confess; | |
One like none, and liked of none, fittest were; | |
For things in fashion every man will wear. | |